Wooden mats have been utilized in the oil and gas industry and the construction industry to provide temporary access roads to construction sites that are otherwise generally inaccessible to heavy trucks and construction equipment because of poor soil conditions. These mats provide access to the construction site for location of drilling rigs and other heavy construction equipment during the drilling and construction phase of operations. When drilling or construction is completed these mats can be removed for utilization elsewhere.
Conventional mats for temporary access roads are constructed of wooden boards. They can be built piece by piece or by use of a plurality of prefabricated mats tied together. Fitting together individual mats that have horizontally projecting interlocking tabs and slots has been the conventional method of tying the prefabricated mats together to form an access road. Individual mats are linked together, tab into slot, to form the matting system.
Waller, Jr., U.S. Pat. No. 4,600,336 discloses an interlocking wooden mat assembly with selected planks on the top layer of the mat projecting from the edge to provide a male extension to couple with a corresponding female recess on an adjoining mat.
Penland, Sr., U.S. Pat. No. 4,462,712 discloses a similar flooring system with a plurality of interlocking mats, the mats are locked together by protruding tabs or extensions fitting into corresponding recesses on adjacent mats.
Other methods of matting have been disclosed by Hicks, U.S. Pat. No. 4,875,800 and Pouyer, U.S. Pat. No. 4,889,444. Both disclose a mat and matting method where multiple layers of two-ply mats are laid down and are then secured with a second layer of two-ply mats to lock the system in place.
Conventional mats and matting methods that employ tabs experience the problem of the tabs being broken off during construction or removal and storage. This causes fitting problems on reuse so that maintenance is required to replace the broken tabs before the mats can be reused. The other methods, like Hicks and Pouyer, require laying down the individual mats in a series of layers in order to achieve the locking effect and in order to provide sufficient strength to the mat system. This increases the labor and time involved in installation and removal and therefore the costs of the temporary road.
There has been a need for a temporary matting apparatus and method of construction that eliminates or minimizes the effects of broken tabs or extensions that is present in conventional mats and, at the same time, eliminates the time, cost and expense of laying down the mats in multiple layers to ensure an interlocked mat of sufficient strength.